Lists of stuff from a listophile

Month: December 2015

It feels like November was thin culture wise (for me you understand – not the cultural scene), but this is probably because the last week has been a washout with various outings cancelled due to a plethora of illnesses in my family.

That said there’s real quality here (despite the lack of quantity). Detectorists is back – that makes life feel brighter for sure. River and Unforgotten saw me considering joining the Nicola Walker appreciation society – I felt really sad when they both finished. Unforgotten is coming back to ITV but no word on whether there will be seconds of River – I really hope so.

Theatre-wise there were two corkers, first one was The Shroudmaker of Gaza by Ahmed Masoud, a fantastic one-woman (or in this incarnation one-man) show which was done as a one-off at Amnesty in aid of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Justin Butcher was brilliant and Ahmed’s writing by turns hilarious, moving and informative.

And then I went to The Father – Florian Zeller’s play at the Wyndhams – I nearly didn’t go as tickets were not cheap. But I’m glad I forked out to see Clare Skinner and Kenneth Cranham in this purely theatrical, deceptively simple and ultimately devestating play.

The other thing I did was the Underwire Festival – a fantastic film fest promoting women in film. My short film The Record was shortlisted for the screenwriting award and so I went along expecting to drown my sorrows after – but the script only went and won. So that was nice. I was handed a cheque and now my lovely producers and I need to get fishing around for some more money so we can get making it ASAP. Exciting.

Here’s November in full:

1 November - Unforgotten
2 November - HOME FRONT OMNIBUS
4 November - River
5 November - Unforgotten
8 November - Orange is the new Black
9 November - London spy
9 November - Last Kingdom
10 November - River
11 November - The Shroudmaker of Gaza
12 November - The Father
14 November - Detectorists
15 November - Unforgotten
17 November - River
18 November - London Spy
20 November - Detectorists
21 November - Orange is the new black
21 November - The Coroner
21 November - House of Cards
22 November - Underwire festival
23 November - London Spy

And it’s December already – I’ve been doing this blog for nearly a year as per my new year’s resolution 2014 – jury’s out as to whether I’ll continue it in this vein next year but let’s see… in the meantime I’ve Irish music, cinema trips and the odd play planned to fill the spaces between Christmas do’s…